


trained, conditioned, and framed

by hollow_city



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Family, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Piano, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2018-12-16 10:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11827185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollow_city/pseuds/hollow_city
Summary: tim is quiet, and therefore, tim knows a lot about a lot of things. including his family, and the piano. to show this without saying this, he writes them all their own song.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this could also be considered a sequel to something else i wrote, endless time, but you don't necessarily need to read that to read this. that does have a bit about how tim learned to play, but you don't really need that to understand this, either.

Tim has always been quiet. Nobody ever really listened to anything that came from his mouth, so he learned to keep it shut. 

Like one of his nannies used to say, children are supposed to be seen, not heard.

But even then, he took pride in keeping himself hidden. He didn't like to be around other people, because the only people he got to see were awful associates of his parents', and they never liked him much. They thought he was an annoyance, and frowned at him when he tried to smile.

He stopped smiling. His parents stopped bringing him places. He had a lot of free time on his hands.

So Tim watched. He watched the animals out in the yard. He watched the people interact on the small television he was allowed to use. He watched Batman and Robin. He observed, and most importantly, he paid attention to the things that nobody else ever deemed worth it. 

And to this day, he still does it. He observes and makes an unconscious note of things. 

Like Bruce. Bruce is complicated. Everybody knows that. Tim knows that.  

Bruce can carefully craft a mask to cover anything he doesn't want to be seen, like Batman, and Brucie. They hold tiny pieces of what the real Bruce is like, but they're also stark contrasts. The real Bruce doesn't frown that much, but he also doesn't smile that much. He doesn't brood that much, but he also doesn't talk that much. He falls in the middle, with everything bottled up inside his head, because he doesn't want to burden anybody with those thoughts.

Tim knows this because he's been around enough to see Bruce like that. He doesn't do it much, but Tim is quiet, and sometimes Bruce forgets he's there, and Tim sees what it's like when Bruce isn't trying to hold the weight of the world so they don't have to.

But he's also a bit unsettling. Almost like no one could ever tell what he would do in response to something, and nobody could predict what he would do next. That's why nearly everyone finds the Batman creepy. Scary. Nightmarish. Because he's unpredictable, and he's the closest to the real Bruce that he'll ever let show. 

Tim thinks he can work with that. He can make something creepy. Something unsettling. Something dark. With a tiny dash of hopefulness in there, because Bruce isn't  _all_ sharp edges and sadness. He can be happy sometimes. When everybody's home and uninjured. When Clark trips on his cape. 

When Tim finishes the song, he's quite proud of it. He writes  _Bruce_ along the top and tucks it into the back of the folder of blank sheet music. 

-

Alfred has kind of always had a song. Alfred was the first to know that Tim played, because Alfred doesn't judge, and he won't say anything about it if Tim doesn't want him to.

Tim thinks the world doesn't deserve Alfred. The world doesn't deserve a person even half as great. To show his appreciation, he finally writes his song. Bits and pieces have always been there, but they've never been put together or written on a page before. It takes him a few tries to get it just right, but when he finally does, he writes  _Alfred_ across the top in tiny, neat letters, with a small smiley face drawn beside it.

He waits until the butler is in the same room as him, idly dusting off the glossy black top of the piano, to start playing it. At first, Alfred doesn't say anything, like usual, and allows Tim to go about his business unhindered. But then Tim catches his eye, in a very obvious sort of way. He continues to play through the song, which dips and rises and speeds up and slows down every few measures. Certain parts repeat themselves and certain parts don't, but the song is undeniably  _Alfred_.

When the song is over, Tim knows that he saw the title, because he's standing frozen behind him, off to the side, clearly trying to pretend that he's still dusting away at the shelves and tables. Tim knows he isn't, because he totally sees the slight tear gathering in Alfred's eye. 

He doesn't say anything, though. But that's okay, Tim gets it. He understands. 

-

Dick. Dick is different. He's not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, but only when he's happy. That's why everybody thinks he's just happy-go-lucky all the time, no matter what happens.

Tim knows that's not the case. Dick feels too much, but he doesn't show it. He doesn't think anybody wants to see it. He's never said that, but Tim knows. 

Dick is sad a lot, despite the smile he puts on anyway. Tim sees that, even though he doesn't say it. He doesn't want Dick to know that because he knows what it's like to try that hard to cover it all up. He knows the burning feeling that comes with trying to hide the things nobody wants to see.

When Tim sits down at his piano when he comes home from patrol with Dick, at something like four in the morning, he has no plans of sleeping. He knows exactly what Dick's song should sound like, and it has to escape from his brain before it dies and he forgets it forever. He's done that before, and it  _hurts_. 

Dick's song is soft and flows gracefully and dips back and forth between shining happiness and dim hopelessness. The volume rises and falls with the change in mood, and when he finishes it off, he writes  _Dick_ across the top.  

After that, he doesn't sleep.

-

Jason has always had a song. Since the day Tim first saw him out as Robin, Jason has had a song. It started out loud and happy, but slowly, measures were crossed out and notes were scribbled out of existence. The boy became dark and angry; the song dropped into lower octaves and the notes resided inside minor chords. 

And then Jason died. Tim tore up the sheet music in a fit of rage and sadness and burned it in the fireplace. It didn't make sense for it to exist anymore if Jason wasn't around anymore. There was nothing that the song could be because there was nothing to base it off of. 

So he wrote him a new one. It was dark and it was sad and it made his insides twist when his fingers danced across the keys, but he wrote  _Jason_ across the top anyway. It was the song he would play when he was sad or lonely.

Tim stopped playing it after he became Robin.

He didn't touch Jason's song until he came back. Until after everything was sorted and a fragile alliance was forged. Until Jason could look at him without that burning hatred. 

And now, with Jason sitting beside him, humming some stupid song contently, he can write his song again. 

It's just after patrol, and they've finished early for once. Jason bought them some horrible fast food (and scared the living shit out of the guy behind the counter in the process) and they've set up on the ledge of a tall apartment building. 

The only sound around them besides the chomping is the occasional straggler stumbling through the alleyway below them, but they don't pay it any mind. 

Tim has one knee pulled up with a small notebook balanced on top of it, messy staffs drawn across the pages. One hand holds his cheeseburger, the other is half pressed against the notebook so he can write down wobbly notes. His eyes flick back and forth between the paper and Jason's face as he tries to get the notes right. 

But it's not working. 

With an angered groan, Tim places his cheeseburger on the bag it came in and uses both hands to rip the page from the notebook, tear it in two, crumple it up, and send it over the ledge towards the dumpster down below. He picks up his cheeseburger and draws more staffs like nothing happened.

"What's wrong with you?" 

Tim looks up in the middle of taking a bite and immediately chokes when he makes eye contact. Coughs rattle his chest and he winces as he swallows. Jason just continues to stare at him like he's grown a second head.

"I'm fine, I have to go, I'll see you... some other time," he rushes out, still clearing his throat, before grabbing his food and his notebook and taking off across the rooftops towards his apartment.

He's just barely able to hear Jason mutter, " _What a weird guy_. _"_

But Tim doesn't really care, because he knows how Jason's song is supposed to go now. How it's supposed to sound. And he can't let that slip away because he has spent the last two years trying to find it.

He doesn't change out of his suit or even take off his mask before he finds himself seated at the piano, gloved fingers sliding over the keys to create the picture in his mind. Chords so low that he can feel the vibrations and melodies that make his chest hurt. When he finishes, he writes  _Jason_ across the top. 

-

Damian is an enigma, and Tim has a hard time reading him. That's a feeling he doesn't enjoy, because he likes understanding things. He likes understanding people. Kind of like Cass, but not. Cass is better. He just likes knowing things about things.

But Damian is hard to figure out because Damian doesn't like being around him. He doesn't like Tim, and Tim knows that. They aren't supposed to like each other, Tim is supposed to be Damian's direct competition, and he knows that, too.

Tim doesn't hate the kid for it because this is one of the things about Damian that he understands.

But tonight, Tim is trying to understand. Damian is in a bad mood, but he can't figure out why. So he's watching, waiting, observing, like he usually does. He's hiding behind his laptop to make Damian think he's working, but he has a program open that fills the screen with staffs and notes. He doesn't use digital versions as much as he actually writes out sheet music, but in situations like this, where he doesn't want anybody to know what he's really doing, he'll use the digital one.

"Do you not have _any_ other ways to spend your time?" Damian's high-pitched voice breaks through his deep contemplation, and Tim realizes that he hasn't been as discreet as he thought. When he doesn't say anything and continues to stare at Damian's splotchy red face, the boy says, "Drake."

Tim comes to a realization. Damian is not hard to read. He tries to be, and he doesn't like to show any of them that he cares about anything, or that he needs anything from anybody. That would mean revealing a weakness. 

That is why Damian has been beating the everloving shit out of a dummy for the past hour. He's sad. So sad that he might even let it show, but he can't let that happen. This is all because Damian is a complicated person, and he likes to keep it that way. 

Tim shuts his laptop and stands up, shaking his head. "Everything's fine. I have to go." 

He walks past Damian, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder as he goes. It's more of an impulse and an acknowledgment than anything. 

Once he's out of the cave, he's walking quickly towards the room with the piano. Ever since he bought his own for his own apartment, he's rarely played at the manor, because he was always too nervous about somebody walking in and finding out. But now, he can't find it in himself to care, because Alfred knows, and Jason knows, and they don't seem to think anything of it.

Besides, it would take too long to drive all the way back to his apartment and get everything set up at his own piano. By then, everything would surely be mixed up and Damian would never get his song. 

(He's not entirely sure Damian would give him the time of day to listen to it anyway, but none of these songs are supposed to be heard by their namesakes anyway, so Tim supposes that's okay.)

The song starts slow and simple, in the same saddening key as all of the others have been. Some things clash in the perfect way. Some things sound out of place. Then suddenly, it gets complicated, and he stresses over the sudden intensity of his own work.

(That's perfect, though. Damian's song stresses him out. Damian stresses him out. It's all the same to him.)

When he finishes, he writes  _Damian_ across the top. 

-

Steph is the easiest. She is familiar, and Tim understands her. She isn't complicated, and she isn't dark and pained like the rest of them. He doesn't have to agonize over the right notes or the right key because he already knows what her song is supposed to sound like. 

He thinks that maybe he's always known, but her song doesn't exist on paper and has never been through the keys of a piano, so maybe he hasn't. 

Stephanie is happy and loose and carefree and only occasionally complicated, much to his mind's relief.

Her song is easy. It doesn't hold the same gut-wrenching tone that the rest do, and Tim can honestly say that the free, happy feeling that comes with playing it is something he's never felt before.

He smiles as he writes  _Stephanie_ across the top. 

-

Cass is the perfect kind of wonderful and strange. Tim doesn't understand it. She knows everything there is to know about everybody just by studying the way their eyes move and the way their jaw clenches. He's almost jealous. 

He wishes he could do that. Then the music in his mind wouldn't be so jumbled and nonsensical all the time. 

But then, being around her makes him happy. She'll sit with him without even saying anything and it'll make him feel less alone. Or sometimes she'll just touch his arm and it's incredible that something so small could make him so happy. Nobody really hugs him anymore. Or touches him at all. He misses it sometimes. She seems to understand. 

He's grateful for that.

This is why her song comes all at once. She's the third to know that he plays the piano (Play feels like such an empty word. Is that really what he does?), and she makes him feel like he has something that no one else has. 

He never thought he'd have a big sister, but she's the best one he could've hoped for. 

Cass's song is soft and slow and powerful all at the same time. It starts simple and grows as it goes on. It never grows too loud and flows peacefully. And she loves it.

She asks him to play it for her, and he almost doesn't want to, because they aren't supposed to hear them, but she looks so happy, and the thought that he made her that happy just by showing her that he wrote some stupid song for her is enough to make him play it for her. 

At first, she's sitting on the piano bench beside him, far enough over that she isn't in his way. But as the song progresses, she stands, and she begins to dance, and Tim's torn between watching the keys and watching her. 

When the song is over, she writes her name across the top. 

-

Tim doesn't play Bruce's song until Dick is out of town and Jason is gone and Cass and Steph are out together and Damian is outside doing who knows what. He doesn't play Bruce's song until Bruce isn't paying attention to him (this doesn't take long, Bruce has been very busy lately). 

When Tim sits down on the bench, Bruce merely raises an eyebrow, because he hadn't even known that that thing was in tune anymore. Nobody, to his knowledge, has touched it in years. When Tim doesn't do anything for a few minutes, he goes back to his work. 

But then, music is filling the room, and he pauses. It takes him a moment to finally look up and see his son's hands moving across the keys like a second language. Then, his eyes move up to the few pieces of paper resting on the stand. They're hooked into a binder and there's only two of them, but on the top, it says  _his_ name.

Whatever Tim is playing, it has his name. He's not sure how to feel about that, and he's not sure how to feel about any of this. 

He drops his pen and watches Tim play all the way through, slightly awestruck. Halfway through the song, Tim's hands split away from each other and the left one begins to dance back and forth, fingers folding under and over each other. While his right hand bounces back to the same melody as before, the left stays where it is.

Even when the song ends, he doesn't know what to say. He almost tells him, in his own awkward way, that he did a good job, but then he sees the name of the composer.

_Tim Drake-Wayne._

His  _son_ wrote that song. And named it after him. 

And a whole new sense of pride blooms in his chest as he stands up and moves around his desk. Tim spins around on the bench so his back is to the keys and when he sees Bruce stepping towards him, his eyes widen slightly and his shoulders tense. 

Bruce wants to frown at the sight, but instead, pulls Tim to his feet so he can wrap him in a tight hug. It takes Tim a few moments to fully understand what's happening, and eventually, he relaxes into the embrace. 

It doesn't last too long, and things don't change too much after, but Bruce hugs him at least once a week now. 

Tim's happy with that, because it's one more a week than usual. 

-

When Dick finally gets to hear his song, it's only because Tim's been burdened with making sure he doesn't do something stupid and aggravate his previously dislocated knee even further.  

If it was up to Dick, he would already be back out on the streets, but it's up to Alfred, which means Dick is to stay off that knee.

"Come on, Timmy, you don't have to-" Dick tries to protest as Tim drags him towards the kitchen with his arm wrapped around his shoulders, but Tim just sighs.

"No, Dick, I do," he tells him, and Dick only tries to protest again.

Eventually, Tim stops trying to drag the older man down the hall and shoves him through a doorway. Dick's eyebrows shoot up as he stumbles through and uses the piano to balance himself. He hadn't even known there was a piano in here. Or maybe he did, and he just hasn't been into this room for so long and forgot. 

"What are we doing here?" he asks, but Tim doesn't say anything in favor of pushing Dick towards the worn couch. Dick doesn't know who would've sat there to wear it down like that, but there are notebooks littering the coffee table in front of it, so he assumes that  _somebody_ must have recently spent time in here. 

"Sit down and shut up," Tim says quietly, grabbing the throw pillow from the other end of the couch and chucking it at Dick's chest. 

Despite his slightly shaking hands and unsteady breath, Tim sits down at the piano, grabs the folder taped to the bottom of the bench, and pulls out the second song. Dick watches curiously, and when he sees sheet music with  _his_ name on it being set on the stand, his eyes widen. He doesn't have much time to ponder over it because then Tim starts to play.

Dick can't do anything but watch as his little brother fills the room with beautiful, heart-wrenching music. The music on the page had seemed easy enough (not that Dick has ever actually played the piano; he wouldn't really know), but watching Tim's hands cross over each other and his fingers hit each key like he was born to makes it seem like something else entirely. His hands rest on top of each other for most of the piece, and occasionally one hand jumps down the keys, only to pop back up a beat later. 

The entire song is heartbreaking in a confusing kind of way. It rings clear, deep depression, but every once in a while, something changes, and it rises into a dull kind of happiness. But then, right when the song adjusts to that change, it falls back into the same sadness. 

It takes him a moment to realize that Tim's eyes aren't even open, and he's just playing by memory and blind hope. That just makes it all the more impressive.

The song ends almost too quickly for his liking, and then Tim is standing in front of him with bright red cheeks and clenched fists. Dick can't even find the words, because _his_ amazing little brother wrote him a damn song. His mouth opens and closes like a fish for a few moments until it clicks shut and he lurches forward to grab both of Tim's hands.

When he loses his balance, he lets himself fall backward and pulls Tim down beside him on the couch and pulls him against him in one of his signature so-tight-it's-almost-painful-but-it's-good hugs. Tim grunts when his body hits the couch and the air is forced from his lungs, but after a few moments, he relaxes into the embrace and rests his head against Dick's shoulder. But after a few moments of it, Tim seems to want out, because he begins to tug against Dick's arms.

"Uh, Dick, please," he mutters, only to have Dick hum and shake his head.

"No, Timmy, if I have to _sit here_ ," he says as if it's some kind of torture, "then so do you."

-

"I brought pizza. Get off your ass and come eat it."

Tim lifts his head from the table and peers blearily through squinted eyes. Jason is standing on the opposite side of the table, holding the aforementioned pizza and frowning.  

"Hey, Jason," Tim mumbles, rubbing a hand down his face and through his hair. "What time is it?"

Jason drops the box on the table. "Three in the afternoon. Have you been sleeping there all day?"

Tim shakes his head, grimacing. "No. It's been... uh, ten minutes? I think?"

Jason rolls his eyes but doesn't press the matter further. He collapses into the chair across from Tim and grabs a slice of pizza. He nudges the box further toward Tim, but he doesn't take any for a moment.

He's too busy watching Jason. Sometimes he just forgets that Jason died and that they went through a few terrible, awful years without him. And then sometimes Tim will forget that Jason is still here, and then he'll see him, and everything is good and everything is okay again.

"I wrote a song about you," he blurts, without really meaning to.

Jason pauses mid-bite and raises an eyebrow. "Did you?"

Tim decides it's probably too late to back out now and looks down at his hands. "Yeah. It was kinda a work in progress. For a really long time."

"Why?"

Tim looks up through his eyelashes and shrugs. "Couldn't get it right."

Jason swallows and leans forward. "Well, let's hear it."

Tim stiffens and his eyes flick between Jason's face and the piano in the corner behind him. Jason was never supposed to hear his song. Sure, most of the others have at this point, and Jason has heard him play before, but this is different. At one point, Jason's song was about death, and at another, it was about depression, and at another, it was about loneliness, and right now, the song has all of these things compacted into one, and he's not sure Jason really wants to hear that.

But Jason's watching him expectantly, and he can't just say no.

So he stands up, forgetting the growling noise his stomach is making after rejecting the pizza, and sits down at his piano. He doesn't need the sheet music for this one. He knows this one by heart. 

Jason turns around in his chair and abandons his pizza in favor of watching Tim play. 

The song starts out soft and simple. Nothing but a few notes occupy his right hand and his left hand carries the piece for a while. As it goes, it gets louder and louder and more and more complicated, and the entire thing is just  _sad_. It flows together perfectly and Tim plays it like he's never known how to do anything else. Almost in the background, higher notes are interspersed and they almost make it sound happy, but then they don't, and the sounds tug at his heart.

The ending is slow and quiets down quite a bit, and then it's over, and they fall into a thick silence. Tim doesn't turn around and Jason doesn't say anything for a few minutes. 

Finally, he swallows hard and clears his throat, before saying, "that was very depressing, Timber."

Tim doesn't know what to say, so he blurts out, "I wrote part of it when you died."

More tense silence. 

Thankfully, Jason breaks it. "Jesus, okay, get over and eat this before it gets cold." Almost as an afterthought he says, "and before we get all emotional and shit."

Tim sits down at the table across from Jason and eats lunch (or is it dinner? It's too late to be lunch.) with him, and he smiles. 

-

Tim knows Steph won't care, so on her birthday, he plays her song for her, and she smiles the whole time, and requests that he do it again, so she can record him. That kind of scares him and makes him a bit more nervous than usual, but it's Steph, and it's her birthday, and how could something bad happen?

She kisses him on the cheek and thanks him for it profusely, and he tries not to blush so hard, but it's a bit difficult when he's being showered with praise. 

A few days later, Tim uses Steph's phone to absentmindedly check the time, and finds that the background is a picture of himself hunched over the piano with one foot hooked behind the leg of the piano bench and the other pushed forward to use the pedal. His hair covers most of his face, but it's definitely him, and his entire face burns bright red as he shoves the phone away from him.

 _How could something bad happen_ , he had thought.  _It'll be fine_ , he had thought. 

"It's a good picture!" Steph protests when Tim comments on it glumly.

He doesn't have the guts to tell her to change it. 

-

Damian comes last. Mostly because circumstances make it difficult to ever actually spend time with the kid, and partly because Damian just doesn't usually make an effort to spend time with him.

But one night, at around midnight, the kid shows up at his window. It's one of the nights that Tim actually wants to sleep, so he's not entirely impressed when someone starts tapping on his window. It stops shortly after it starts, and Tim decides that whoever it is can just go somewhere else because he's too damn tired for this shit tonight.

Right when his cheek hits his pillow again, the tapping starts up again, more urgently this time. With a groan, he rolls out of bed, sending most of his blankets to the floor, and drags himself over to the window. He doesn't bother looking to see who it is before he pulls it open with a tired and angry, " _what?"_

When he finally blinks the sleep from his eyes and sees Damian perched on the ledge outside, he sighs. 

"You look like roadkill, Drake," the gremlin says, and Tim rolls his eyes.

"Thanks. What do you want?" he grumbles, rubbing at his eyes as he tries to keep them from falling shut. 

Damian shifts and looks over Tim's head. "I... you were the closest to my previous location. Believe me, this would not have been my first choice."

It's then that Tim notices the way the kid's favoring his left leg and tilting slightly against the outer wall of his apartment building. He can't see what's wrong with his other leg, but he assumes it must be at least a little concerning if Damian actually sucked up his pride and came  _here_ for assistance.

Tim reaches up slowly and grabs Damian's arm, before dragging him in through the window. The kid squawks and tumbles through ungracefully, but lands on his feet anyway. His face tightens when his right foot hits the ground, but he tries to cover it up immediately.

"What happened to your leg?" Tim asks, grabbing a shirt off his floor and pulling it on. 

"Nothing," Damian lies, shifting with discomfort.

Tim sighs heavily. "Cut the shit, Damian. Why are you here?"

Damian looks deeply uncomfortable as he admits, "I may have run into an issue." At Tim's expectant stare, he shifts around so he can see the other side of his leg. "Stitches. And then I will be gone."

Tim's eyebrow raises and his mouth opens slightly. Running from the top of Damian's thigh, down to his knee and stretching down and over the inner part of his shin, is a messy gash. Whatever kind of knife was used tore straight through his armor.

"Wow," he says eloquently, before snapping out of his tired stupor and gesturing for Damian to follow him. "Yeah, whatever, I'll fix it."

"I am perfectly capable," he scoffs.

"Uh-huh," Tim hums, ignoring him. 

It takes him a few minutes to get out his first aid kit and find the right supplies. Damian insists that he won't need any painkillers, but Tim rolls his eyes and shoves something into his hand anyway. He tries his best to ignore the kid's bitching and moaning about anything and everything he sees wrong with Tim's living arrangements.

When he finishes off the stitches (they're not the best, but they'll do), he leans back and shoots Damian the angriest glare he can possibly manage at this hour.

"There. Done. Now go home before I stab you with this," he mumbles, packing everything away. He grabs a cup and fills it with water, before shoving it into Damian's hands. 

Damian doesn't say anything as he readjusts the bottom half of his suit, and his eyes fall on the piano.

"Why do you own a piano?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. Tim shoots him another distasteful glance.

"It's purely decorative. I haven't the  _slightest_ clue how to play it," Tim says dryly. 

" _You_ can play the  _piano_ ," Damian says, more as a statement than a question. " _You?"_

Tim rolls his eyes. "Yes. Me."

The kid looks back and forth between the piano and Tim. When Tim doesn't move, his expression grows impatient and exasperated. 

"Well?" he says. 

"...What?"

"Play something."

They stare at each other for a few more moments, before Tim gives in and, partly to spite the brat, sits down on the piano bench and starts to play. He thinks belatedly that maybe he should've pulled out the sheet music for this because he doesn't know Damian's song as well as he knows the others, but it's too late now, and he has to prove himself.

That makes the experience a little less enjoyable to start with, but then, Damian's intense presence melts away, and it's just him and the piano.

Damian's song is melancholy and sad, like the rest of them, but it's also different. It starts very slow and very simple, slowly adding in more and more. Octaves replace simple notes, lower notes cut in where higher ones once were. The simple melody suddenly slows to a stop, and then his fingers are flying back and forth. His right hand stays in the same general spot, swapping out only a few notes every few measures. His left hand jumps back and forth without fail, creating a steady beat. 

There is nothing happy in this one, nothing hopeful, nothing bright. Just slight indications of light here and there that are immediately drowned out by dark chords and arpeggios. 

The end of the song is sudden. The airy sixteenth notes give way to the melody from the beginning, and it slowly begins to grow softer, and his fingers stall a little more every few notes. It comes to a sluggish stop. His foot stays on the pedal and the notes ring through the piano for a few more moments, until he lets go, and they stop, and he stands up.

He can't see Damian's eyes because he never took his mask off, but the kid is frowning. Not shocking. 

"That was... respectable," he says, which definitely  _is_ shocking. Tim hadn't expected anything but a scoff and an offhanded insult. 

For a moment, he considers not even telling him that it's  _his_ song, but then he says in a slightly strained voice, " _so_  glad you think so. It  _was_ written for you, after all."

Tim walks back to his room and collapses into his bed to the sound of Damian's coughing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> obviously, the songs tim wrote aren't mine and they aren't his, they were all written by alexandra streliski. as of 11/2/2017, you can find them in the next part :).  
> EDIT!! you'll find, as of november 2nd, 2017, that i've completely reworked this. when i wrote this i made two fatal mistakes: 1. i left out alfred! how could i do that? and 2. i hadn't actually played or even gotten my hands on the sheets for most of these songs so my portrayal of them wasn't 100% accurate. or even like... 60%. now that i've learned and played 5/7 of the songs (the only one's i've yet to try my hand at are new york and le lecon, because they aren't quite my favorites), i figure that i've done a better job this time.


	2. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these are the songs! i thought that maybe it would help if i added them. this part has no actual writing in it, just links and titles :)  
> (and... i also wanted an excuse to change the date on this, considering how much i changed, but i was too afraid to just change the publication date in the settings...)

**Bruce:** [Comptine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX4c-n1kKFo)

_(This was the first of the bunch that I learned and, in my opinion, the easiest to get the hang of.)_

 

 **Alfred:** [Le leçon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAT8JBeFj1Y)

_(This is one of the songs that I haven't played myself.)_

 

 **Dick:** [Prélude](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-8Nq8kK5Fw) _  
_

_(This one has a difficult melody to pin down, but it's ridiculously beautiful.)_

 

 **Jason:** [Le depart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUf5eujdq98)

_(This is my second favorite because it's so sad and I live for sad yet beautiful things.)_

 

 **Damian:** [Le sablier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipYoGF0p1U)

_(This is my absolute favorite out of the group, maybe my favorite song I've played in years, even though it's kind of a monster to learn.)_

 

 **Cass:** [Berceuse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-LWedPx-uY)

_(This one's pretty. That's about all I've got to say about it.)_

 

 **Steph:** [New York](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYaya1TUdCY)

_(This is the other one that I've yet to play, but I think it's quite nice when you're in the mood for a fairly cheerful song.)_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh how i hope this has all been formatted correctly. i'm losing sleep just trying to get it right.


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